DeRuyter: SEC offers ‘NFL look’ offensively; DeRuyter video

Defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter meets the media this week leading up to the Arkansas game in the above video
Brent Zwerneman

COLLEGE STATION – Certainly Saturday morning’s game has lost some of its luster – the fact that it’s a morning game, for starters – since both No. 14 Texas A&M and No. 18 Arkansas are coming off conference losses, but it’s still a top 20 game in Cowboys Stadium, in the third installment of the Southwest Classic.

And to Aggies defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter, Saturday’s 11 a.m. game (ESPN) offers a strong sample of what’s to come in the Southeastern Conference starting next year.

“This team has (Bobby Petrino’s) signature on it,” DeRuyter said. “They’ve recruited to the SEC with the personnel that he wants to have. They’re a physical team, and deserving of a top 20 ranking – and that’s what we’re getting ready for in the future.”

If you watch the above video, you’ll see why DeRuyter – always helpful and understanding that reporters have a job to do – will make a great head coach someday, and probably sooner than later.

A&M inside linebackers coach and former NFLer Dat Nguyen told me that he can count on one hand the number of coaches he’s been around on any level with the ability to quickly analyze defense breakdowns the way DeRuyter is able to (unless, apparently, the other team is running a helter-skelter hurry-up offense that not even the officials can keep up with, but that’s another story).

Anyway, DeRuyter this week analyzed what type of offenses the SEC generally runs – with one of those at hand Saturday in Arlington.

“The SEC for the most part is a much more NFL-looking type of offensive attack,” DeRuyter said. “Of course there are different offenses – for instance Mississippi State is running more spread stuff like coach (Urban) Meyer ran at Florida. But when you’re looking at LSU, Arkansas and Alabama (for instance), you’re going to see much more two back sets, and much more multiple personnel groupings. Of really establishing the run and a physical running game, to set up the passing game afterward.

“In our league (the Big 12), it’s a little more of spreading you out to run the football, and spreading you out to throw the football.”

So is one approach more difficult to defend than the other?

“There are different challenges,” DeRuyter said. “The key is realizing what you’re facing, and trying to get your best athletes on the field to matchup with them, and put them in the best position to defend what you’re seeing from them.”

Finally, DeRuyter said he’s a 3-4 scheme guy no matter the overall approach of offenses, whether that’s in the Big 12 or the SEC.

“The SEC, like I mentioned, is very similar in structure to what NFL teams like to do,” DeRuyter said. “You look in the NFL at Pittsburgh, Dallas, the Texans with coach (Wade) Phillips – half the NFL has now gone to the 3-4. And that’s a two-back league that goes to one back afterward, very much like the SEC does.”